Moments before I was sitting in my office when I heard some guys come in and yell, "Miss Dawn, look what these boys were doing!" They shared the confrontation and name-calling that had taken place outside and brought in the broken pieces of our mission coffee cups that were busted up because some teenagers were playing baseball with them.
"Who are they?" As I am heading across the parking lot, across the street, some of the shelter guys grabbed additional shelter guys in case something broke out. This is over a couple broken coffee cups, but still.
The teenagers were blocks away at this point and I couldn't even see who they are to snatch them up the next time they walked in the doors for a meal. In mom-mode, I was planning their punishment and about to get a weeks worth of dish-washing out of these boys!
Several shelter guests shared what they saw and said the boys found (did not take) our coffee cups on top of the roof of the building across the street. That the boys found them up there and were hitting them with a stick.
I asked my shelter guys to please let me know who they are when they come back.
Not even 10 minutes later, two boys (early 20's) came into the mission asking for me. Very respectfully they said, "We yelled for you to get your attention outside, but you didn't hear us. We were the ones, but we promise you we didn't take them, we found them on the roof." I asked them what the heck they were doing on the roof of the building across the street? The one boy said, "I was not raised by a family and sometimes I don't do things right, but we were up on the roof because we climb and jump doing parkour downtown."
I asked their names, shook their hands, and told them I am proud of them for their honesty and integrity to come to me so quickly to explain the situation. I added that they almost were on dishes duty for a week, but to please ... the next time they find mission property, to return it and not bust it up playing baseball.
It all ended very well.
There were so many dynamics that took place:
1 - Two young men caught busting up mission property, then an ugly name-calling confrontation outside that as the normal gets everyone yelling prior to me going out, yet they very respectfully came to apologize not realizing they looked liked wide-eyed, little boys barely stepping in the mission asking for me to make a confession and apologize.
2 - The boys tattling on the shelter guys for calling them, "hood-rats" and my guys telling on them they were called, "F---ers."
3 - Shelter guests watching me to see how I was going to handle the situation head-on. This truly sets the stage for respect with this culture. To show class but to be in control, kind but firm, caring but handle situations head-on, feminine but not weak, loving but not a doormat, generous but not to be taken advantage of.
Strength under control.
